Here’s a fun one.
Nato should examine how it can power tanks and jets with alternative energy, such as solar panels, to reduce its carbon emissions, the alliance’s secretary general said.
Reducing reliance on fossil fuels would also make troops less vulnerable to attack because they would not have to rely on long supply lines getting fuel to the front line, Jens Stoltenberg said.
The Nato chief suggested that militaries should advance research into low-emitting vehicles because of the advantages they bring, at an online seminar titled New Ideas for Nato 2030.
“Nato should do its part to look into how we can reduce emissions from military operations,” he told the Chatham House event. “We know that heavy battle tanks or fighter jets and naval ships consume a lot of fossil fuel and emit greenhouse gases and therefore we have to look into how we can reduce those emissions by alternative fuels, solar panels or other ways of running our missions.”
https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/europe/nato-chief-suggests-battle-tanks-with-solar-panels-as-militaries-go-green-1.1160313
Best line in the story.
He told the seminar that his background as a UN envoy on climate change helped with the proposals.
https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/europe/nato-chief-suggests-battle-tanks-with-solar-panels-as-militaries-go-green-1.1160313
Willis commented about this news story on social media thusly
The stupid, it burns … an M1 tank gets 0.6 mpg. A gallon of diesel contains ~ 40 kWh of energy. A solar panel puts out ~ 1 kWh per day. A solar panel is about 17 sq. ft. You MIGHT fit four of them on an M1 tank without impairing the weapons and sensors. Then you’d need four Tesla Powerwall batteries, weight half a ton.With that setup, every ten days you could move your tank 0.6 miles …w.
The GWPF also covered this story with this excellent cartoon by Josh.
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All we need is a UN treaty that everybody has to build tanks and planes powered by solar panels!
Treaties have worked so well in the past.
Germany built the Graff Spee and it’s sister ships (nominally) according to the Treaty of Versailles.
What could go wrong?
What could go wrong?
The Washington Naval Treaty.
Military planners should favour nuclear bombs since they are “zero emissions” weapons.
We all know that CO2 is more dangerous than gamma radiation and nuclear fallout so what are we waiting for.
Military planners should favour nuclear bombs since they are “zero emissions” weapons.
We all know that CO2 is more dangerous than gamma radiation and nuclear fallout so what are we waiting for.
Besides, with all the global warming which is already “locked in” we need a few decades of nuclear winter to get us back to the ideal conditions of the Little Ice Age.
Start WWIII to “save the planet”.
BTW a General Secretary is a secretary, a pen pusher, not a general .
How much energy does it take to power an Abrams battle tank just to keep the turbine engine running? The NATO secretary general and former prime minister of Norway must have greenhouse gasses in his head.
If it snows can we ask for a ceasefire until the children know what it looks like?
World’s ‘solar and wind capital’ freezing due to snow ‘blanketing millions’ of solar panels (msn.com)
“Nato should examine how it can power tanks and jets with alternative energy, such as solar panels, to reduce its carbon emissions, the alliance’s secretary general said”
All you have to do is shoot out the solar panel, and the tank is worthless. End of story.
about 3500 square meters of solar panels… per tank
Plus a reserve for overcast days.
What’s the next step beyond abysmal stupidity and outrageous ignorance?
What BULL.
First they should figure out how to make the airliners fly with solar or wind power.
Or perhaps hydro?
Bad times ahead with BuckFiden leading.
Only an idiot that had never served in any capacity where he/she could see the reality of how soldiers and their equipment really work, could write this BS. I guess they figure solar panels and reactive armor and the recoil of heavy gun fire are a great match. Dumb MFrs.
“Reducing reliance on fossil fuels would also make troops less vulnerable to attack because they would not have to rely on long supply lines getting fuel to the front line” Instead you get to have a huge array of solar panels sitting on top of your tank which do nothing for you on cloudy days or at night. Even with batteries it will be next to impossible. Did any of these idiots think to ask how big would these solar panels have to be to propel at tank for an extended period of time? I would think its size alone would make this idea ridiculous. The other option is to have solar panels behind the line charging batteries that would need to be rushed out and exchange with those in the tank. These would be huge batteries.It takes a lot of energy to move around such a massive size vehicle. It is so easy to make such foolish suggestions having no idea how impractical they would be.
According to Wiki M1 and newer variants of our main battle tank:
:Fuel capacity504.4 US gallons (1,909 L)Operational
range
M1A2, road: 265 mi (426 km)
Cross country: 93–124 mi (150–200 km)[7]
According to another source:
A tank will need approximately 300 gallons every eight hours; this will vary depending on mission, terrain, and weather. A single tank takes 10 minutes to refuel. Refueling and rearming of a tank platoon–four tanks–is approximately 30 minutes under ideal conditions.
0.6 miles per gallon.
60 gallons per hour when traveling cross-country
30+ gallons per hour while operating at a tactical ideal
10 gallons basic idle
A mine plow will increase the fuel consummation rate of a tank by 25 percent
————————————————-
Now can one of you smart fellows here convert that to electric energy needed for comparable performance.
we met the enemy, and he is us
next you’ll tell us that the US navy will purge its ranks from those not woke enough instead of focusing on purging the enemy…. oh…. wait…
hope those solar panels are bullet proof and don’t get dirty from all the dirt blowing up around them
They can put active, explosive armor on top of the solar panels to prevent bullets from penetrating!
This attorney general could find employment writing tax code.
Anyone that has spent a tour as a field soldier knows that virtually everything issued is designed to be soldier proof and heavy enough to stand up to it’s use in tough conditions. The DMDG we used for encoding and decoding weighed about 20 times more than a unit that would do the same thing intended to be used in an office. It all has to be water and dust proof and impact resistant as possible.
He’d make more sense if he said he wanted the tanks nuclear powered… I can’t believe anyone could think a tank could be an EV.
Good lord, that has to be one of the dumbest things I’ve read in recent memory. And that’s pretty impressive, considering 2020 and 2021 so far.
I still remember several years ago some general was showing a new HMMV-style prototype truck off to Jay Leno. He was doing his spiel about about all of it’s requirements. But number one on the list was that it was “environmentally friendly” because it had a 2×2 foot solar panel on the back and was designed to run on bio-diesel or ethanol or unicorn farts. I forgot what number 2 was, but it was great to know that crew protection and survivability was their #3 item on the of list design objectives. I nearly threw my tablet at the wall. But I guess with the idiots in the Pentagon these days, I should be happy it made the list at all.
I have to lodge a complaint about the cartoon as completely unfair and uncalled for. If we fulfilled our solemn pledges from the completely serious Paris Agreement by adopting such advanced climate friendly technology, it is impossible that any enemy would find it so easy to carpet bomb us as depicted. First it would take several days for our enemies to stop laughing and get control of their bladders before mounting an attack, and secondly I am sure that their bean counters would not allow such a waste of perfectly good ordnance, instead supplying their airforce with paint guns and spray paint to cover the solar cells. It’s dawned on me that about ten small rounds would be able to destroy each tank’s set of panels, so I will definitely yield the floor to anyone with the relevant information as to which method is the least expensive. Also anyone know the effect range of opera singers who can hit high C and shatter glass?
The original article is also totally credulous and doesn’t have any challenge or rebuttal. Report is so exceedingly woke that his brain is totally asleep. It depresses me that any green article turns to be a ‘puff-piece’ or press release rather than proper journalism. If I wrote a April’s article in the local birdcageliner on the need to cut down all the national parks and put up combined wind-solar parks in their there place, I’m sure I would be praised for my bold action and visionary thinking.
It’s way past time for a remake of ‘Dr. Strangelove’ – with a modern twist, switching out nukes for ‘renewable energy’.
To put all this into perspective: 1kg of petrol or diesel fuel has the energy content of 53kg of lithium/ion battery (fully charged).
This is one of the main reasons why electric cars cannot match an ICE car’s range.
In a tank, the size and weight of any battery source would make the whole vehicle design implausible.
Despite not having that type of training, to me, viewed from above, solar panels and windmills could be a textbook definition of “self acquiring targets” that simply can’t be missed.
I don’t know. If CAGW/CC is the existential threat it is made out to be, and warfare is meant to be an existential threat to one’s enemies, I would think that the Mutual Assured Destruction doctrine would have every military on earth gear up for the most fossil-intensive possible battlefield equipment. The more gas-hoggy, the better!
It looks as though Einstein was wrong: it’s not WW4 but WW3 that will be fought with sticks and stones. Renewable sticks from sustainable forestry, of course.
This is what you get when the elite
(1) do not take the prospect of war seriously (hint: try not to lose; losing is bad)
(2) follow the postmodern idea that the function of speech is to exercise power, not to convey truth
(3) have limitless contempt for proles (such as soldiers).
The equipment scales of what will come knocking if you aggravate NATO are indicated in here :
https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/51535-fsprimerbreakoutchapter2.pdf
each of those formations requires the movement of thousands of tons of fuel, rations and ordnance a day once engaged…
Chances of running this on renewables two chances Sod all and none…